The image above isn't something from James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep. No, it's actually an artist's rendering of a spam email with the subject, "HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THAT YOU ARE GETTING FAT?" The images below represent some of the most notorious code the world has seen, including PWS-Lineage, Stormy, MyDoom, Mytob, IRCBot and Netsky.

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Artist Alex Dragulescu renders these eerie 3D images using the neutralized code of viruses, worms, spyware and Trojan horses. He gets the code from the security firm MessageLabs, which commissioned the works. Dragulescu explains:

API calls, memory addresses and subroutines are tracked and analyzed. Their frequency, density and grouping are mapped to the inputs of an algorithm that grows a virtual 3D entity.

Why does this remind me so much of all those movies where scientists culture supposedly neutralized biological viruses, and the next thing you know 97% of the earth is dead? No, Alex, we wouldn't like a signed, numbered digital copy of your virus collection on our hard-drive, no matter how safe you say it is! [Alex Dragulescu via Gizmodo AU]